After living with a stunted leg for most of her life, a 21-year-old Chinese woman underwent an intensive surgery to lengthen her left leg by nine inches.

Xu Juan’s left leg was damaged after an infection left her thigh bone eroded by bacteria as a child, according to the Rex Press agency. Without proper medical care her left leg was left 23 centimeters shorter than her right leg. As a result she had to use crutches to effectively move around.

After years of saving up money, her parents were finally able to pay for her surgery to even out her legs, though she had other complications besides a deteriorated thigh bone.

"Her condition was very complicated. As she not only has a shorter leg, but her knee and hip joints were also underdeveloped and had to be replaced,” Dr. Hu Yihe told the Rex Press Agency. "So we made a treatment plan of two phases. The first phase was to extend her left leg and made the two legs evenly long, then the second phase surgeries was replacing the left knee joint and left hip joint."